New to bidding on eBay, does it automatically increase a ghost bid until it hits the number the seller wants?

Bid on an item that said zero bids, and then it kept telling me I was being outbid and when I would look at the timestamp of the “bidder “ it would say three hours ago 12 hours ago even though I am the first bidder. Always a higher number than my last bid. I bid three times in a row and the ghost bid increased each time but the timestamp was still always 12 hours ago. Is this real?